Morndas, 17th of Last Seed, 4E201
Once he'd led her into the tiny washroom attached to the house, Frodnar took great care in demonstrating the water pump. He'd apparently drawn the conclusion that she had no idea what it was or how one might operate it. (Considering her memory loss, she was almost surprised she only had to pretend to need the lesson.)
Gerdur returned several minutes later to find her son "correcting" the girl's use of the pump, and the big wooden barrel tub only halfway full as a result. She set a neatly folded pile of clothes atop a small cupboard before addressing him.
"Thank you for helping, honey. Go find your father and see if he needs anything. I've got to get this one all sorted."
"Okay. Bye, girl!"
She waved a farewell and watched Gerdur close the door behind him. The woman assessed her. She nodded. "First, that hair has to be combed out. Can't have you muddying up the water before we even have a chance to use it."
Her hair was, admittedly, in quite a bad state. From the moment she'd woken up it had been more or less twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck, with several strands having escaped into a snarled mess. It was so caked with mud and ash, Gerdur said she couldn't even tell what color it was. She produced a wide-toothed comb and had the girl sit on a stool, unpinning her hair and beginning the laborious process of raking the muck out of it. By the time she'd gotten it to an acceptable degree of not-clean, the girl's neck was sore and her scalp was tingling.
Next, Gerdur had her peel down her left sleeve at the shoulder, and she carefully cleaned and examined the depth of her wound.
"Absolutely needs stitches," Gerdur confirmed. She patted the girl's arm. "But we'll wait until after the rest of you is clean, hmm?"
She turned to the cupboard and pulled from it a fresh linen rag, which she handed to the girl. "Get that gown off and wipe yourself down with this as best you can. I'm going to get the hot water from the kitchen. When I come back we can finish filling the tub and put some heat in it for you. Sound good?"
It did sound good, in theory. In reality, once Gerdur had left and the girl began to struggle out of her clothes, she was treated to a fresh reminder of everywhere her body hurt. It hurt her ribs to bend. It hurt her back to stretch, hurt her arms to reach around for the laces at her back. Her legs didn't hurt, per se, but they'd retained enough of their noodly quality that stepping out of her gown became an exercise in not falling over.
By the time she'd kicked the gown to one side of the small space, she was breathing hard and feeling faint. She really needed some sustenance. Thankfully, her undergarments followed with less struggle.
She hadn't made much progress getting herself clean when Gerdur rapped on the door and announced she was coming in. The woman dumped the contents of a steaming kettle into the current bathwater, instructing her charge to continue wiping herself down while she finished filling the tub. Finally, the girl was told to climb in.
The kettle only managed to get the water sort of warm, but it still felt amazing to sink into. Gerdur lathered up her hands with crushed soapweed and began methodically working it through the girl's hair.
"But there is a lot of it, isn't there?" Gerdur remarked. "I don't know that I've ever seen a woman who could stand hair this long. Doesn't it get in the way?"
I actually don't know, the girl thought. She hadn't realized how long it was until they'd combed it out. Didn't it get in the way? What did she do in her life that she could afford such a vanity?
After Gerdur had poured a steady kettle-full of water over her hair to rinse it, she retrieved a soft-bristled brush from her cupboard, along with some more soapweed, and they got to work scrubbing the grime off of her. Gerdur helped reach where her left arm couldn't, and for a few minutes everything was fine. Better than fine; she was starting to feel clean. Then Gerdur's brush scoured across a tender spot in the middle of her back. She yelped.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Gerdur rushed. "I thought that was a …"
She trailed off. The girl glanced over her shoulder as Gerdur's fingertips traced above the worst of the injured area. Gerdur's hand jerked back. Her expression went dark.
"By Kyne. Who did this to you?"
The girl's brain stalled. It echoed the words in wary confusion. When it found no response, a nauseous disquiet filled the girl's chest. As if her skin were crawling, but inside out. She focused on her knees.
"Do you realize what I'm looking at?" Gerdur continued, the edge in her voice a thinly veiled attempt not to raise it. "I suppose you can't have seen it, but this looks like—Honey, I can see that someone kicked you. This bruise is shaped like a footprint."
The girl flashed back to those moments in front of the chopping block. The captain had pushed her onto the block with her foot, but she hadn't actually kicked. The tender spot had already been there; the girl remembered feeling it. And none of the guards had kicked her, so the bruise had existed before she woke up. But if that was the case …
She and Gerdur sat in heavy silence until she went back to rubbing soap over a dark spot on her knee. A moment later, she realized the spot was a fading bruise. She took a shaky breath and moved on. Gerdur also took a breath, as if to steel herself. She resumed scrubbing her brush across the girl's shoulders.
"I'm sorry," Gerdur said. "I suppose I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong. It's a bad habit of mine."
She paused again when her brush passed over the girl's upper right arm. Together, they silently noted a set of greenish-yellow marks that mimicked the shape of large fingers. Gerdur didn't comment.
A growing sense of wrongness came over the girl with every mark that didn't give way to soap and water. Her entire right side was covered in a spray of bluish-purple, fading to green at the edges, and her legs sported a variety of bruises in different shades. Her left forearm looked even worse clean than it had when she'd looked at it in the wagon. She felt detached from herself, like this was not her body, and she'd just picked it up out of the gutter somewhere. She'd put it on, but it didn't fit. The only injury she felt she could claim was the arrow wound.
When she was at last clean, Gerdur had her step out into a linen towel and set her back on the stool. She combed out her hair one last time, the formerly muddy tangle transformed into a gently waving mass of honey-colored strands.
"So you're a blonde after all," Gerdur remarked. She gently tugged on a lock. "This'll be a nice color once it's dry. Good and thick, too, just like a Nord's should be."
She stood in front of the girl, observing her handiwork. She gestured to her own hair and then the girl's. "Isn't it heavy, though? I could cut it for you, if you'd like."
The girl thought about it. Fully untangled, her hair fell past her hips, and especially while wet, it was indeed heavy. Perhaps it would make this body more comfortable if she made it easier to live in?
Or perhaps there were people looking for her and they were more likely to recognize her with this hair length. Perhaps they would ask others if they'd seen a girl with very long hair. Perhaps it would help her find out who she was if she changed herself as little as possible.
She shook her head. Gerdur shrugged. "Suit yourself." She tapped the girl's head with her comb. "Well, now we just need to take care of those stitches. I'll be back again."
When she did come back, it was with a wooden box in her hands and Frodnar in tow. He went to the girl's side immediately and patted her leg in a comforting gesture she was certain he'd learned from his mother. It was cute—almost enough to distract her from the needle and thread Gerdur was preparing on her other side.
"Mama says I should talk to you so you're not scared," Frodnar explained.
Gerdur hummed in agreement. "Just make sure you don't look at it, and you'll be fine." She pulled a flat wooden stick and a clay jar from her box, using the stick to scoop up some sort of cream from the jar. She spread it thinly over the skin around the wound.
"Swamp fungus paste," she said. "It's supposed to numb the skin, so hopefully you feel it less."
Well, that was something. As Gerdur set the paste aside and took up the needle again, the girl focused on Frodnar. He smiled up at her.
"Mama says I can show you my dog! But not right now. He's all dirty and he still likes to jump on people. I don't care but Mama says you don't want to be dirty."
The girl nodded as Gerdur gripped her shoulder. She tensed. Frodnar patted her leg again.
She certainly still felt it when the needle dipped into her skin, and though it was more like a pinch than a poke, it was utterly unsettling to feel her flesh being tugged and pulled like a piece of cloth. She steadfastly tried to ignore everything but Frodnar, who seemed to appreciate monopolizing her attention.
"Honey, why don't you sing her a song?" Gerdur suggested after a few minutes, when Frodnar had gotten distracted describing how gross the stitches looked. "Do 'Little Deirdre' so you can show her."
Frodnar brightened, promptly taking a position in front of them that gave him room to move. "Okay, watch. Mama, are you watching?"
"I'm putting in these stitches right now. You show her and I'll just listen."
"Okay. Are you watching, girl?"
She nodded. Frodnar held up both his arms as if to flex his muscles, and launched into a verse. "Little Deirdre, bold but frail, went to climb a mountain trail!" He marched in place, swinging his arms for emphasis. "And at the top, what did she see?" He held his hand above his eyes as if peering into the distance, then made a shocked face. "A monster taller than a tree!" He rose onto the tips of his toes and held both his arms up as high as they would go.
"But Little Deirdre was not scared," he continued, wagging a pointer finger and shaking his head. "Even when the monster stared, and stomped his feet and showed his claws, and opened wide his giant jaws!" He mimicked the monster's actions with gusto. He switched to a determined face and flexed his arms again.
"And Little Deirdre, frail but bold, sang a song from days of old. And Little Deirdre sang so sweet," he paused to place both hands over his heart, "the monster stopped his stomping feet!"
He threw both his arms out as if having just revealed something incredible. The girl gently clapped her hands so as not to disturb her shoulder. Frodnar beamed.
"We only sing the first half of that one," Gerdur said. "The last verses are too dreary for me." She took a small knife from her box and used it to cut the last bit of thread. "There, all done. That wasn't so bad, was it?"
The girl shook her head, more to humor Gerdur than out of actual agreement. Frodnar scurried forward to inspect the girl's shoulder. Gerdur dabbed a new ointment over the stitches and wrapped her shoulder with some fresh linen before sending her son out once again. After they'd laced the girl up in her new clothes, Gerdur fetched a small, round mirror from her cupboard drawer and handed it to the girl.
"Well, what do you think?"
The girl braced herself. She held the mirror out and started at her feet. The hem of her dress was too long. The skirt flowed up and dipped in at the waist with the help of side laces. She saw a simple round neckline, her bandage peeking out from her shoulder, a slim neck, and then—
Oh.
The Ballad of Little Deirdre
#
Little Deirdre, bold but frail,
Went to climb a mountain trail,
And at the top, what did she see?
A monster taller than a tree!
#
But Little Deirdre was not scared,
Even when the monster stared
And stomped his feet and showed his claws,
And opened wide his giant jaws!
#
And Little Deirdre, frail but bold,
Sang a song from days of old,
And Little Deirdre sang so sweet
The monster stopped his stomping feet!
#
Then Little Deirdre's monster cried
And asked if she would be his bride,
But Little Deirdre shook her head,
And to the weeping monster said,
#
"Monster, I am bold but frail,
And so I climbed the mountain trail
To feel the wind and see the sky,
That I might live before I die."
#
The monster ached to hear her plight
And offered her his wings in flight,
And thus they soared beneath the sun
Till Little Deirdre's life was done.